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On this day: June 11

2014: Ruby Dee, the award-winning actress whose seven-decade career included triumphs on stage and screen, dies at age 91 at her New Rochelle, New York, home. Dee -- often with her late husband, Ossie Davis -- was a formidable force in both the performing arts community and the civil rights movement. Some of her best known movie roles came in "The Jackie Robinson Story," "A Raisin in the Sun," "Edge of the City" and "Do the Right Thing," and she also earned an Academy Award nomination for her performance in 2007's "American Gangster."

2010: The FIFA World Cup opens in South Africa, the first time soccer's biggest tournament was held in Africa. The tournament ended a month later with Spain capturing its first World Cup title.

2009: The "swine flu," the H1N1 influenza strain, becomes the first condition deemed a global pandemic by the World Health Organization since the Hong Kong flu of 1967-1968.

2003: David Brinkley (seen on the TV screen at left), a newscaster for NBC and ABC in a career lasting from 1943 to 1997, dies at the age of 82 in Houston, Texas, from complications after a fall.

2001: Timothy McVeigh is executed by lethal injection at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, for his role in the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 and injured more than 680 people.

1999: Actress DeForest Kelley, best known for playing Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy in the "Star Trek" television series and film franchise, dies of stomach cancer at the age of 79 in Los Angeles, California.

1993: Steven Spielberg's science-fiction adventure film "Jurassic Park," about an island where genetic scientists have created a wildlife park of cloned dinosaurs, premieres in theaters. The movie, based off Michael Crichton's book of the same name and starring Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Richard Attenborough, would gross more than $900 million worldwide to become the highest-grossing film of all time, breaking the decade-old box office record set by Spielberg's "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial." It would be surpassed four years later by "Titanic."

1986: The comedy "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," starring Matthew Broderick, Mia Sara, Alan Ruck, Jeffrey Jones and Jennifer Grey, and directed by John Hughes, premieres in theaters. The movie, which was also written and produced by Hughes, became a critical and box office success, earning $70 million to rank as one of the top grossing films of the year.

1986: Actor Shia LaBeouf is born in Los Angeles, California. After getting his start as a child actor on the Disney Channel series "Even Stevens," he is best known today for his role in the "Transformers" movie series as well as other films such as "Holes," "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," "Disturbia," "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps," "Lawless" and "Fury."

1982: Steven Spielberg's science-fiction film "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" premieres in theaters. The movie became a box office hit, breaking records by surpassing the $100-million mark of ticket sales in the first 31 days of its opening. It also surpassed "Star Wars" to become the highest-grossing film of all time -- a record it held for 10 years until "Jurassic Park," another Spielberg-directed film, surpassed it in 1993.

1979: Actor, director and producer John Wayne, a top box office draw for decades and an enduring American film legend, dies of stomach cancer at the age of 72 in Los Angeles, California. Wayne was best known for his westerns, including "The Big Trail," "Stagecoach," "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," "The Searchers," "The Alamo," "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," "Rio Bravo," "True Grit" and "The Shootist." He also starred in movies like "The Quiet Man," "Sands of Iwo Jima," "The High and the Mighty" and "The Green Berets."

1978: Actor Joshua Jackson, best known for the TV series "Dawson's Creek" and "Fringe," and "The Mighty Ducks" film series, is born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

1977: Seattle Slew wins the Belmont Stakes, capturing the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing. The horse is the third most recent to win the Triple Crown, which consists of winning the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes, with Affirmed becoming the 11th Triple Crown winner a year later and American Pharoah winning in 2015 after a 37-year gap.

1976: Wild Cherry's funk rock song "Play That Funky Music" is released. The single hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on Sept. 18, 1976, and also topped the Hot Soul Singles chart.

1971: The U.S. government forcibly removes the last holdouts in the Native American Occupation of Alcatraz, ending 19 months of control. A group of Native Americans known as United Indians of All Tribes had occupied the island to protest federal policies related to American Indians. Graffiti from the period of Native American occupation are still visible at many locations on the island.

1970: After being appointed on May 15, Elizabeth P. Hoisington (left) and Anna Mae Hays (right) officially receive their ranks as U.S. Army generals, becoming the first females to do so.

1969: The western "True Grit," starring John Wayne, is released in theaters. Wayne would win the only Academy Award of his career for his portrayal of U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn.

1969: Actor Peter Dinklage, best known for his role as Tyrion Lannister on the HBO drama "Game of Thrones," and for movies such as "The Station Agent," "Elf" and "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian," is born in Morristown, New Jersey.

1963: Alabama Gov. George Wallace stands at the door of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in an attempt to block two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from attending that school. Later in the day, accompanied by federalized National Guard troops, they were able to register.

1963: President John F. Kennedy addresses Americans from the Oval Office proposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that would revolutionise American society. The bill proposed equal access to public facilities, ending segregation in education and guaranteeing federal protection for voting rights.

1963: Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc burns himself with gasoline in a busy Saigon intersection to protest the lack of religious freedom in South Vietnam. Malcolm Browne would win a Pulitzer Prize for his iconic photograph of the monk's death.

1962: Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin allegedly become the only prisoners to escape from the prison on Alcatraz Island. The three fabricated dummy heads and left them in their beds to fool guards and then escaped from their cells through holes they had dug in the walls with spoons over the course of a year. Once out of the prison, they left the island in a raft they assembled from the prison's standard-issue raincoats and contact cement. The FBI's investigation was unable to determine whether the three men successfully escaped or died in the attempt.

1960: Surgeon, author and television host Mehmet Oz, better known simply as "Dr. Oz," is born in Cleveland, Ohio.

1959: Actor and comedian Hugh Laurie, best known for the TV medical drama "House" and the British comedy series "Blackadder" and "Jeeves and Wooster," is born in Oxford, England.

1957: Elvis Presley's "(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear" is released. The song would go on to become a No. 1 hit for Elvis during the summer of 1957, staying atop the U.S. charts for seven weeks, and his third of the four that he would have that year.

1956: Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana, who won four Super Bowl titles over his 14 seasons with the San Francisco 49ers before closing out his career with two seasons with the Kansas City Chiefs, is born in New Eagle, Pennsylvania. The eight-time Pro Bowl selection won three Super Bowl MVP awards, was twice named the NFL's Most Valuable Player and threw for 273 touchdowns and 40,551 yards in his career.

1955: Eighty-three are killed and at least 100 are injured after an Austin-Healey and a Mercedes-Benz collide at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, sending debris into the crowd. The incident is the deadliest ever accident in motorsports.

1945: Actress Adrienne Barbeau, best known for her role as Bea Arthur's daughter in the TV series "Maude" and as a sex symbol in the 1980s in horror and sci-fi movies like "The Fog," "Creepshow" and "Swamp Thing," is born in Sacramento, California.

1944: The USS Missouri, the last battleship built by the United States Navy and the future site of the surrender of the Empire of Japan to end World War II, is commissioned.

1937: The Marx Brothers' "A Day At The Races" is released. The seventh film starring the brothers, the movie would become a major hit.

1933: Actor Gene Wilder, best known for movies such as "The Producers," "Blazing Saddles," "Young Frankenstein," "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" and "Stir Crazy," is born Jerome Silberman in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

1927: Charles Lindbergh is presented with the first Distinguished Flying Cross in honor of his solo nonstop transatlantic flight from New York to Paris.

1919: Sir Barton wins the Belmont Stakes, becoming the first horse to win the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing.

1913: Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi, who led the Green Bay Packers to three straight league championships and five in seven years, including winning the first two Super Bowls, is born in Brooklyn, New York. He died of colon cancer at age 57 on Sept. 3, 1970, and the NFL's Super Bowl trophy is named in his honor.

1910: Marine explorer, conservationist and filmmaker Jacques Cousteau, who popularized underwater exploration and pioneered marine conservation, is born in Saint-André-de-Cubzac, Gironde, France. Cousteau, who co-developed the Aqua-Lung, also filmed more than 120 television documentaries, wrote more than 50 books, and created an environmental protection foundation with 300,000 members. He died of a heart attack at the age of 87 on June 25, 1997.

1895: Charles E. Duryea patents the first-ever working American gasoline-driven automobile. Duryea and his brother Frank had road-tested the car two years earlier and would start selling the hand-made cars a year later, becoming the first-ever commercial automakers.

1894: Kiichiro Toyoda, the businessman who would found the Toyota Motor Corporation, is born in Shizuoka, Empire of Japan. He formed the company in 1937 as a spinoff from his father's company Toyoda Loom Works to create automobiles and served as its president between 1941 and 1950. He died from a cerebral hemorrhage at age 57 on March 27, 1952.

1880: Jeannette Rankin, who became the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress in 1916, is born near Missoula, Montana. A Republican and a lifelong pacifist, she was one of the 50 members of Congress who voted against the entry of the United States into World War I in 1917 and, after being elected again in 1940, the only member of Congress who voted against declaring war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. She is also the only woman to be elected to Congress from Montana.

1864: Richard Strauss, a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, is born in Munich, Germany.

1805: A fire consumes large portions of Detroit in the Michigan Territory. A river warehouse and brick chimneys of the wooden homes were the sole structures to survive. Detroit's motto and state seal reference the fire.

1775: The American Revolutionary War's first naval engagement, the Battle of Machias, begins in and around the port of Machias in what is now eastern Maine. The battle would end the following day with the capture of a small British naval vessel.

1770: Captain James Cook discovers the Great Barrier Reef off Australia when he runs aground. The ship was badly damaged and his voyage was delayed almost seven weeks while repairs were carried out on the beach at the mouth of what's now known as the Endeavour River near modern-day Cooktown, Queensland.

1509: Henry VIII of England marries Catherine of Aragon. She would end up being the first of his six wives. Upset that his first marriage had not led to any male heirs and unable to secure an annulment from the Roman Catholic Church, Henry declared the supreme head of the Church of England and ruled the marriage invalid, instead marrying his mistress, Anne Boleyn.

323 B.C.: Alexander the Great dies at age 32 in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II in Babylon, in present-day Iraq. While several natural causes have been suggested, including malaria and typhoid fever, others feel the Macedonian king was poisoned. Alexander, who was undefeated in battle and considered one of history's greatest military commanders, had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world, stretching from Greece to Egypt and into present-day Pakistan.

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